Marital rows do not just produce harsh words and hot air - they can harden your arteries too, a study suggests. But the cause of the damage differs depending on your gender, the research by University of Utah scientists involving 150 couples found. They said arterial disease in women was linked to either partner demonstrating hostility, but in men it was linked to either showing controlling behaviour. The research was presented to the American Psychosomatic Society meeting. The researchers studied 150 married couples, with at least one partner in their sixties, who were all paid to participate in the study. None had ever been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

China has said it will increase its military spending by 14.7% this year to 283.8bn yuan ($35.3bn; £20bn). However, a spokesman for the Chinese parliament said much of the rise would be to cover fuel and salaries and that China was a "peace-loving nation". Jiang Enzhu said the US spent a greater proportion of its economy on defence and that China had "no intention of vigorously developing armaments". The US has several times accused China of understating its military budget. China's armed forces are the biggest in the world and have seen double-digit increases in military spending since the early 1990s. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4773358.stm

A bomb exploded Saturday under a vehicle carrying four Afghan intelligence agents near a southern provincial capital, killing all of them, officials said.Meanwhile, separate fighting in the south killed two insurgents and a member of the U.S.-led coalition, the U.S. military said in a statement. It did not identify the soldier's nationality.Some 25 countries have forces that are part of the coalition. Spokesmen for the two biggest contributors, the United States and Canada, said the dead service member was not one of theirs.The fighting occurred Saturday in Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold, the statement said. The soldier was rushed to hospital, but he later died, it said....http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/04/afghan.violence.ap/index.html?section=cnn_world

A mortar round killed seven people and wounded 15 others at a busy market in a southeastern Baghdad suburb early Saturday, said an emergency police official, one day after a daytime curfew brought relative peace.The overnight curfew had ended at 6 a.m. local time.Three other people were killed in bombings outside Baghdad, among more than 500 lives lost in the wave of sectarian violence since the February 22 bombing of the Shiite Al-Askariya Mosque in Samarra.Police in Baghdad said the market blast in Jiserdiyala occurred around 7:50 a.m. (11 p.m. ET Friday), and video of the scene showed damaged storefronts and the remains of victims....http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/04/iraq.main/index.html?section=cnn_world

The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes the lethal "flying gunships" of the Vietnam War to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The A P has learned. An AP reporter saw the first of the turboprop-driven aircraft after it landed at the airfield this week. 4 are expected. The Iraq-based special forces command controlling the AC-130s, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, said it would have no comment on the deployment. But the plan's general outline was confirmed by other Air Force officers, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject. Military officials warned that disclosing the location of the aircraft's new base would violate security provisions of rules governing media access to U.S. installations. The four-engine gunships, whose home base is Hurlburt Field in Florida, have operated over Iraq before, flying from airfields elsewhere in the region. ...http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060303/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_gunships

Authorities raided a squalid house Friday, capturing 70 illegal immigrants and four suspected smugglers believed to have been holding migrants hostage while awaiting payment.Federal agents and a sheriff's SWAT team entered the home before dawn, setting off flash-bang grenades to stun any smugglers inside.Packed into the grimy one-story bungalow were 70 people from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Mexico. Some slept 20 to a room, authorities said."It was squalor, absolute squalor. Bug infestations, trash on the floor," said Frank Johnston, an agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.The house had bars on the windows and a surveillance camera to monitor the outside, Johnston said. A handgun also was found.Authorities were not immediately able to confirm whether any of the people were being held against their will....http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Immigration_Raid.html